Michael McLeod

Mr. Chair, we believe our rates for leases on airport lands are comparable to what the city leases their lands for. We do an assessment on a five-year basis. Every five years, we have a consultant come on stream. We do an assessment and check the market to see if our rates are comparable. So we are quite comfortable that it is comparable. However, having said that, it should be noted that the service levels are not the same. Our lands are leased out. They don’t have provisions for water and sewer at this point, so the rates could be considered higher on airport lands than they would be...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the clearing of access roads to cabins is really clearly outside of the Department of Transportation's mandate. However, we have, in some regions, been able to come to some agreements in areas where there are no other contractors or no construction outfits to come and do that work. I would be pleased to be able to sit down with the Member to talk about the particular roads that he's referencing. There is some flexibility here where if there's a clear demonstration that there is nobody else that can do it, if he can demonstrate that there is a land...

Mr. Chair, this bill will not change the authority of the airport managers. I don’t believe the airport manager is on contract. Our contracts are usually with the maintenance side of the airports. That is the case in Tuktoyaktuk. We just recently put the airport maintenance to public tender. A local company has taken on that responsibility. Our airport manager will have the same authority. In fact, he would have also the responsibility to act as an enforcement officer in the airports that he looks after.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, with today being Friday and the weekend, coming up, I want to speak on a subject that's been a problem with the people, especially the youth, across the Northwest Territories for years. That problem, Mr. Speaker, is alcohol and drugs.

We've been battling that problem for years and it goes way back. With the pipeline coming, there's going to be more money, more chances to get alcohol and drugs, and too many families across the North, Mr. Speaker, have buried loved ones because of alcohol and drugs. Start making some good choices; and this is a message to...

Mr. Chair, we have already been to Tuktoyaktuk. This legislation is already in place. However, that information regarding the access to the airside is not part of Bill 14.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I would like to introduce Mr. Russell Neudorf, the deputy minister of the Department of Transportation; to my right, Mr. Paul Guy, the assistant director of airport programs and standards, Department of Transportation; and, Ms. Janis Cooper, legislative counsel for the Department of Justice.

Mr. Speaker, the work continues to go ahead on the Bear River bridge. We did some early design work. We have done some early scoping and costing of the area. We have also had several meetings with the community to talk about the actual location of where this bridge can be accommodated. These meetings were very well attended. There was some good discussion. We feel that we are quite comfortable, along with the community, as to the actual site of the bridge. We have hired a company to do some pricing on this project. Some early costing has shown that this bridge will more than likely...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it is always good to get a compliment on some of the work and initiatives we have done in the different areas of the North. We have certainly put a lot of effort in the Sahtu. We have been working this year, I think, in the Sahtu region. We are working on two fairly large projects in terms of bridging. Big Smith and Little Smith creeks, those will be going ahead. We started doing some of the initial work this past year. We will continue to do that. The cost factor is a concern. Our prices are coming in fairly high. We are looking at ways that we...

Mr. Speaker, the money included in the budget is money identified on a cost-shared basis through agreements with the federal government. There were a number of projects that were included in our submission called Corridors for Canada. There was also the Strategic Highway Infrastructure Program and other agreements signed with the federal government. Some of these were earmarked for specific areas. In the case of the bridging program and the Mackenzie Valley roads, it was to deal with some of the resource development pressures. We had included the Tuk to Inuvik stretch of road in our...

Madam Chair, I don’t believe any of our acts spell out a formal process to appeal any infractions under this bill. There is, of course, the standard procedure, as in the highway act. If you don’t feel you were treated fairly, you could go to the staff, you could go to the senior management, or you could go to the Minister. If it’s a traffic ticket that is issued, then you can appeal it through the court system. There is a legal process. We don’t have it spelled out, written anywhere in that respect, but neither do any of our other bills lay that out in a step-by-step manner.